Agonizing Pressure
by AShipperWithNoLife
Summary: America is burnt out, and isn't sure whether or not he is going to be able to handle anymore stress, but it doesn't seem as if the world his willing to give him a break. All he wants is a full night of quality rest, and perhaps some approval from his peers for his hard work. Yet, it seems as if even that is too much to ask for at times.


**Disclaimer: Hetalia never did, never will, and probably never should belong to me. Also, this story may contain some major OOC, because I wrote this while I was feeling a little frustrated.**

 **A/N: So why did I decide to write anything while I was stressed out? Well, I remembered that I had this fic that was waiting to rot in my endless supply of half finished fanfictions, and decided, "Oh, how appropriate."**

 **Yeah, yeah. I know it might be bad, but I just felt a need to finish it up and post it. Also, I'm kind of don't want to rate this K, because I never do that, but I really see no excuse to give it a higher rating. Still feels awkward though.**

 **Oh, and never be afraid to leave a review.**

* * *

America was on his way to the meeting; exhausted from his week of only four hours of sleep every night, constant workload, and almost non-existent free time. Some nights, he would become even more stressed out when he was finally allowed to sleep, for every minute he spent just lying there instead of dozing off would be considered time of his life that was just wasted, and a moment of rest he would never be able to savor. Occasionally, he would even start sobbing uncontrollably. Sometimes it was due to the fact that he felt as if he was unable to ever fall asleep, or thought that he would never be able to finish up a stack of papers he was currently working on. However, whenever the emotional breakdowns did occur, they were most often caused by his boss constantly telling him that he wasn't turning his work in on time, or that he needed to start working much harder than he already was (which apparently wasn't considered much).

Of course, he was perfectly aware of the fact that he had plenty of time to complete his work, or at least on some days, he had just enough time in the day to complete it. The thing was though, his lack of sleep was causing him to start daydreaming quite a bit when he was suppose to be working, or listening to someone speak. Sometimes, he would even fall asleep without warning. He didn't know where the insomnia came from, or how his stress and procrastination even began. All he knew was that everything seemed to be going okay, until one day more and more things began to stress him out, and worrying thoughts he was unable to prevent started to haunt his mind whenever he tried to achieve having a full night of peaceful rest in a warm bed.

America sat down in a seat at the meeting table, lazily preparing the space of the table in which he would be occupying so that there were papers available for him to take notes, and his plans for the presentation were ready for when he would need to look at them. Right after that, he set his head down in his arms, and tried to catch up on some sleep before the meeting began.

He was about doze off into a deep slumber, until he heard someone announce the beginning of the meeting. However, America couldn't have cared less for the meeting at that moment. He was simply too burnt out and sleep deprived to really care much for anything. Therefore, instead of listening, he decided to keep his face buried in his arms, and fall asleep once more as his peers continued to ramble on about some problem they wanted to fix. That was, until he felt a sharp poke at his side, which caused him to lazily lift his head up from the comfort of his arms. After spending a few seconds to wake up from the half-conscious state he was just in, America glared at whoever decided to disturb his sleep to find England giving him a look of disapproval. Of course, why didn't that surprise him? America decided to turn his gaze so that he was now miserably watching the current presentation, all while growling to himself with an inaudible voice, "Stupid Brit. When will he learn to just leave me alone?!"

To America, it felt as if he was waiting an entire day just for the first few presentations to end. Sometimes, he would glance up at the clock, only to be struck with disappointment when he found that only a few minutes passed by since the last time he checked. Eventually, after an hour of monotonous presentations passed, it was his turn to present something. For once in his life, America really wasn't looking forward to presenting his ideas to the rest of the nations. Especially since he wasn't exactly prepared to do so, but of course, it was too late to do anything about it now, so he might as well just get it over with.

Of course, America wasn't able to say one sentence before immediately having his ideas shunned. It must have been the way he started the presentation off, but he personally didn't think there was anything wrong with the way he introduced the problem. While America received criticism on how everyone was able to somehow tell that his presentation was going to be yet another disaster, he couldn't help but ponder, _Why can't I just be intelligent like everyone else? Don't they even realize that I spent an hour just trying to come up with a way to introduce this problem? I wish I could just be more like them. They probably don't even have to try to make their presentations at least somewhat decent, and sometimes people actually agree with them._

When the skepticism of the other nations showed no signs of ceasing, America found himself sighing in defeat, despite the urge to start throwing a tantrum right then and there, and announced, "I'm done."

A few nations gave him a look of confusion, before shrugging their concern off and continuing on with the meeting. Sure, America wasn't necessarily expecting anyone to care about the fact that he immediately gave up on sharing his ideas, but as he was returning to his seat, he still couldn't help but be somewhat disturbed by the lack of reaction. He knew that the other nations never really seemed to be too fond of his ideas, but were they really considered that insignificant?

All of those hours he spent trying to make sure that one of his presentations would just go right, when he could've been sleeping, just went to waste. America might as well have been slapped across the face multiple times, and told over and over that he wasn't trying hard enough. Of course he wasn't trying hard enough. When did anyone ever tell him he was trying hard enough?

America glanced up at the clock once more. The fact that there was still an hour of the meeting left only adding to his ever growing vexation. All he wanted to do was go to sleep, but instead, he would be forced to sit up in an uncomfortable chair, and hold back tears of frustration as he tried his best to pay attention to what the other nations were saying. Just so that for once, his boss might not become frustrated with his inability to pay some attention during a meeting.

* * *

At last the meeting was over, and yet, America still couldn't feel relieved. The fact that he'd been holding back tears for so long only caused him to feel numb. He wasn't even sure if he would be able to focus on leaving the building so that he could return to his hotel room, and lay on one of the beds so that he could vent all of his pain into a pillow. After a moment of contemplating whether or not he should start heading for the hotel he was staying at, he eventually decided that his emotions were becoming too much for him to handle at that moment, and began to quickly dash towards the break room.

Once in the said break room, America quickly slammed the door behind him, and sat down on a couch as he started to cry. The overwhelming frustration caused him to start gripping a few strands of his hair between his fingers. Of course, he wasn't pulling his hair hard enough to the point where he was trying to cause himself pain, but he just felt a need to hold something as he curled up.

As soon as he heard the door to the break room open, he tried his best to look composed as quickly as possible; hiding his face so that whoever decided to enter the room wouldn't be able to tell that he was crying. Much to his adversity however, it didn't seem as if this person was going to fall for his attempt at seeming okay, for he heard someone with a Russian accent ask him, "Fredka, are you okay?"

America scowled as soon as he heard the voice. Russia was probably the last person he wanted to see at that moment. No, he didn't necessarily hate him, but he didn't like him either. It was just the fact that they tended to fight quite a bit in the past century, and he was sure that if Russia found out he was just crying over having one of his presentations go wrong, he was sure that he would never hear the end of it. Making sure that his voice wouldn't waver, America retorted, "I'm fine, Russia. Now leave me alone. I don't want to talk to anyone right now."

Unfortunately for America, it didn't seem as if Russia was going to give up that easily, for he heard the other nation begin to approach him. This only made America even more determined to make sure that his face was hidden (but of course, he tried not to make the action look suspicious), as he turned his head away from the direction in which Russia seemed to be coming from. By the time Russia was sitting next to him on the couch, America had his entire body facing away from him. He even refrained from violently whipping his head around to face Russia when he felt a hand rest on his shoulder, "Amerika, tell me what's wrong."

"No, Russia"

"Fredka, how do expect things to be-"

Russia couldn't help but flinch when America suddenly turned around to glare at him. The red in his eyes from crying only seemed to make his bright blue irises even more piercing. Since he was too exhausted and irritating to really think straight at that point, he snapped, "I'm just sick of spending days on all of my presentations, just to have all of my ideas shot down right away! I'm just finding it hard to meet everyone's expectations right now, alright?"

Russia observed America's posture for a moment before stating, "You seem to be burnt out. Why don't you try to rest?"

"I try to, but even if I had the time to do so, I still wouldn't be able to do so for some reason."

At this, Russia immediately pulled America into a hug. At first, America bristled, but then relaxed a bit when the conduction began to create a pleasant warmth. After a while of being awkwardly held by Russia, America decided to ask, "Why do you care anyways?"

"You seemed so miserable during the meeting, and it made me feel a little bad. Besides, I want to be your friend, and friends help each other out, da?"

 _Well, this is just getting awkward_. America couldn't help but think, as Russia went on with his strange speech, "Can we be friends?"

"Um, sure. I guess."

Immediately after receiving that answer, Russia began to squeeze America out of pure glee. This only increased America's discomfort, which caused the young nation to immediately speak out against the action, "Russia, stop!"

Russia frowned at the agitation in America's voice, and immediately loosened his grip, "I'm sorry."

There was a long silence between the two nations, as America became lost in his negative thoughts. That was until he felt a gentle amount of pressure being applied to his shoulders. As great as the touch felt, and as much as it helped him relax, America still couldn't help but ask, "Russia? What are you doing?"

Russia's voice seemed to become a bit deeper as he muttered into America's ear, "Just relax, Fredka."

After a while of being massaged, America felt himself go limp in Russia's arms, some of the pain in his muscles and joints being relieved. He rested his head against Russia's chest and closed his eyes. All of his worries were already forgotten, as America just wanted to fall asleep in Russia's arms at that moment. However, it didn't seem as if the world was going to let him fall asleep just yet, as he heard Russia tell him, "You can't fall asleep here, Amerika. Wait until you are back at your hotel room."

At first, America couldn't help but groan at this, but as he began to wake up a bit, he realized that he still had some work to do. It really wasn't much, but in his tired state, and with how much he seemed to be procrastinating, despite his efforts not to, he believed that it would take him until night time to finally catch up with his work. Pushing himself out of Russia's arms, he explained, "Wait, I can't just go to sleep right now, I still have a lot of work to do."

"Amerika, you look sleep deprived. Are you sure you can't just take nap? And then do your work later?"

"Well, I guess it isn't that much, but-"

"You need to take a break. It may seem as if it will make matters worse, but if you stop worrying about things for a bit, and just rest, you'll feel a little more refreshed. Then you will be able to finish your work."

"Yeah, but the thing is, I have a hard time falling asleep."

"You didn't seem to have problem a moment ago," Russia mused, and, after a moment of thought, came up with an inference as to what exactly was going on with America and his lack of sleep. After coming up with a conclusion, he decided to ask America, in case he was completely wrong about what was going on, "Was I just helping you fall asleep? Should I help you out when you are in your hotel room? It seemed to be working."

"I don't think so. That seems a little weird."

"But wouldn't you rather feel better?"

Instead of declining the offer once more, America thought about it for a moment. Sure, at first he wasn't necessarily comfortable with the idea of Russia being so close to him while he was lying down on a bed, but as some of the pain in his back began to return, and as he thought about all of the nights he spent trying for hours just to achieve a few hours of sleep, the offer was becoming irresistible. After suppressing a sigh, he responded, "Fine."

Russia smiled at this, and stood up before saying, "Come on, let's get you back to your hotel room."

America followed Russia out of the break room, for once, feeling _some_ relief from the seemingly endless stress.


End file.
